Walking with Ghosts

mix, they dance, they talk and laugh together, and no one leaves until well after midnight. Then they come to you, singly, and in couples. They have to leave, but it has been wonderful. Really enjoyable. Their faces are shining, their eyes sparkling. They are not putting on an act, being merely polite. The best party for a long time. You must do it again, Dora. People should mix more. There is not enough social life in this town. It really has been wonderful. Everyone is pleased.
    When they have gone there is only you and Philip. He makes coffee for you in the kitchen and brings it through to the living room. He drinks milk. He rubs his stomach thoughtfully, nursing his ulcer. You don’t believe in his ulcer. He is far too young to have an ulcer. But maybe you are wrong. Your head is difficult to hold. The coffee seems to help, but you have drunk a lot of gin.
    You never get to know Philip. He reveals himself all the time. He is naive, even endearing, but there is no substance to him. He is a leader. People follow his lead because he is open-ended, vacant. It is possible to make of him whatever you will, to project on to him qualities that you wish were there. But there is nothing. In reality he is a simple soul: he fucks (will you ever be completely comfortable with that word?), he coins platitudes, he takes. You can never resist him.
    You could talk to him all night and still not find his core, because he has never found it himself. When he leaves your bed he leaves nothing behind, not even a memory. The sheet is cold next to you. It is as if he has never been there. He is an escapologist like Houdini and Dylan Thomas. His kisses fade on contact. You make him real by discussions about with a third person; everyone wants to talk about him. But when everything has been said he has slipped away into the mists of Argentina, or Rachel Lloyd, or marriage, or, finally, he has disappeared, gone, vanished.
    For some weeks (was it months?) he used your bed like a urinal. He comes to it on impulse, relieves himself, and goes away. Eventually he comes no longer, marries his Jude, and leaves an epitaph tacked to your soul: Christ, Dora, I like old women. They’re so grateful.
    But the parties go on. The parties go on for ever. And the gin bottle becomes a fixture. It leads you from one Saturday night to the next. You experiment with marijuana, taking small drags and aping the reactions of the rest of the group. It does not do anything for you. The young men hover around like flies, and you do not brush them away.
    They are all Philips in different shapes and sizes, young bucks eager to flex their new-found sexual muscle. They bring a kind of warmth with them, even a kind of meaning. But they do not stay. They never stay for long. You do not have what it is they seek. You only have the semblance of it, the remains of it. You are a teacher, a practice ramp. They always take their proficiency elsewhere.
    Even Cecil did not stay for long. And you could have loved her, Dora; she was different enough, odd, even ugly enough. You could have loved her if she had not been jealous of your past.
    You slept through the eighties, Dora. You slept with everyone. You were unconscious, dreaming. Life was a nightmare, a succession of unfulfilled promises.
    That day.
    Diana comes home from school early, refusing to return, ever. The other kids say her mother is a cow. She stands and screams until you slap her face. There is a fire in the York Minster and an abducted Nigerian exile is found in a crate at Stansted. You need a drink.
    Remember. An ex-sailor draping a black cape on the carpet. His friend called Scottie. You lie naked on the bed The sailor and Scottie sit on either side of you. Scottie has a full day’s growth of beard, and earlier in the evening y0ll fed him figs and asked him to kiss you on the cheek. Things have progressed since then. Terry Waite has been kidnapped in Beirut. The sailor watches you and Scottie undress each other; he sits like Buddha at the end of your bed, waiting for his turn. Now they are both saying thank you. They have to go. They have never met anyone like you.
    When was it? A stuttering revolutionary called David. What the hell, Dora, you might be able to cure him. Of stuttering? Of spots? Of impotence? He’s got everything. He curses you, having read somewhere that language turns women on. His cock lies in the palm of your hand like a dead mouse. You are the ugliest woman he has ever slept with. He cannot